On May 11th 2012 I had the pleasure of visiting Ethan Allen school in PA. It was a great time and the kids were wonderful, kind and enthusiastic. I participated in their Career Day by telling them a little about what it is like to be an author and then I shared Teresa’s Shadow with them. I also brought with me autographed copies of books they purchased ahead of time. (Psst – for those who didn’t have a chance to buy the book, I left a few copies at the library. Check it out and enjoy the story!) I enjoyed running into students throughout the day and hearing their kind feedback and stories they shared. One group of girls even said “Happy Mother’s Day”. I would gladly visit them again!
While I was there, the older kids submitted questions they wanted to ask me. I only had time to answer a few of them. However, I thought they were ALL excellent questions. So, what to do? I decided I will answer all the questions right here on my blog. I will answer one per blog post. So keep coming back to look for the next question. If you have a question you don’t see here over time, feel free to leave one in the comments section and I will add it to my list.
So here it goes.
Question # 1 :How did you think of the ideas and titles for your books?
That is a great question. I’m often asked how I came up with certain ideas. Most of the time a thought or a concept comes to me and the story starts there. For example in Teresa’s Shadow all I knew was I wanted to write a bed time story. But I didn’t want just ANY bedtime story. I wanted something new and different. From there, the characters began to develop and ideas grew over time. Eventually I had a basic storyline and I filled in details every time I revised it. Many times the final story is very different from the first draft.
Stay tuned for Question #2!
Jennifer Gladen 